Australia and New Zealand honor their war dead with dawn services on Anzac Day

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people gathered under a full moon across Australia and New Zealand for dawn services Thursday to commemorate their war dead on Anzac Day, as tensions mount in U.S.-China rivalry in the region.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon attended a service in his country’s largest city Auckland, while Australian Prime Minister Prime Minister Anthony Albanese saw the sun rise at a World War II memorial in the wilds of Australia’s nearest neighbor, Papua New Guinea.

April 25 is the date in 1915 when the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps landed on the beaches of Gallipoli, in northwest Turkey, in an ill-fated campaign that was the soldiers’ first combat of World War I.

Albanese trekked to the memorial in the town of Isurava over two days with Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape. Isurava was the site of a major battle where U.S. and Australian troops fought the Japanese in August 1942.